As previous, the suspicion is that they were aided and abetted by affirmative action.
Again, he’s obviously a very bright guy (& I personally don’t think this is an issue). But to the extent that people want to make a big deal about how accomplished he is, it raises the issue of just how much of that was melanin-enhanced.
You’re just framing the issue to your advantage. You, the reasonable guy, acknowledge that Obama’s race helped his academic achievements. What you object to is the other guys, the fools who think he done nothing in his life and that “if you’re a member of a minority group, they’ll take anybody”. But that’s not actually how it’s structured.
Affirmative action helps you get into Harvard, but it doesn’t help you do well. Even if he owes the opportunity to attend Harvard to affirmative action, Obama’s accomplishments there are his own.
It is. The implication is that he got something he didn’t deserve because he’s black, notwithstanding the fact that he achieved some major distinctions at Harvard that indicate he belonged there and pulled his own weight. Of course, then they start saying he didn’t deserve some of those distinctions either and was only editor and became president of the Law Review because he’s black, and the whining continues ad infinitum to cover just about everything about his life.
So basically, the accomplishments of any individual minority in America, especially any African American, are suspect and can be diminished because of Affirmative Action.
Depends what type. Some are subject to AA and some are not. Obama had a record as legislator and Senator before he ran for president, and he now has three years as Prez to judge him by, and these are not related to AA. But if you’re talking about a field which is heavily influenced by AA - which education is - then that’s pretty much true.
That depends on who you ask. It works two ways, of course: his degrees and Harvard resume contributed to his professional advancement, so those can in turn be dimissed as the products of affirmative action rather than his own accomplishments. And of course people who harp on this issue tend to consider everything else about Obama - people’s views of him, media coverage, and so on - as black exceptionalism and affirmative action in their own right. So from their standponit, everything about him is related to affirmative action.
FTR, I agree that Obama would not be president if he was white. He would probably have gotten past McCain, but not Hillary. But that doesn’t relate to iiandyiiii’s point.
Obama’s political accomplishments (or lack thereof) are public record, and anyone can judge for themselves whether they mean anything or not. By contrast, no one knows what was involved in Obama’s academic accomplishments - people are relying on those who judged him worthy of them. And this is where AA comes into play.
So the way I framed the issue is accurate: to the grade-obsessed, everything about Obama is ultimately related to affirmative action and everything he’s done up through getting elected can be dismissed for that reason.
I don’t know that you’re ignoring anything. However you’re apparently advocating ignoring the fact that AA makes it easier for some minority group members to achieve certain things that would be harder for those who do not benefit from AA.
Setting aside my belief that getting into a certain university is not “an achievement” (rather, graduating is, or getting high grades is), my surprise is that you stated that any educational achievement by an African American should be diminished and considered suspect because of their race.
I don’t think not diminishing/suspecting educational achievement by a given African American is “ignoring” any facts. I think it’s fair to say that graduating Magna Cum Laude from Harvard (for example) holds the exact same prestige whether the student is white or black (or other).